The attempted repair of damaged fabric materials used in upholstery, clothing, carpeting, and other articles is commonly undertaken in order to restore the repaired materials to their original appearance and function. While repairs performed with a needle and thread, with or without patching fabric, can restore the serviceability of damaged fabrics, the repairs are usually objectionably visible. In the case of certain woven fabrics, particularly fabrics made with coarser weaves, the damaged area can also be rewoven with surplus threads taken from other areas of the article to be repaired. While repairs made in this fashion are normally, substantially undetectable, reweaving is time-consuming, as well as expensive, since it must be undertaken by individuals possessing a high degree of skill. At least for those reasons, the method is impractical in many cases.
Another repair system commonly used relies upon fabric patches associated with heat activatable adhesives. Such patches are placed either on, or beneath the damaged area, and subsequently attached by exposure to heat, for example, to a hot iron. While repairs thus made effectively restore a fabric's utility, it is oftentimes difficult to obtain a patch having a color resembling that of the fabric to be repaired, and the method fails to produce a repaired article in which the surface of the repaired area, as well as the surrounding area, lie in the same plane. Such surface irregularity, and differences in color result in a "second-hand" appearance, and are objectionable from that standpoint.